Constellation, an Exelon Company, has announced an agreement with three major commercial customers – Johns Hopkins University, food flavoring company McCormick & Co., and apparel and home fashion retailer the TJX Cos. Inc. – to power their operations with solar energy.
The companies will purchase the renewable power and project-specific renewable energy certificates (RECs) from the Skipjack Solar Center, a 175 MW project in Charles City County, Va. Under development on former working timber land, the project is expected to come online in 2021. It is being built by sPower, an AES and AIMCO company.
To simplify the purchase, each of the three customers will use Constellation’s Offsite Renewables (CORe) retail power product, which increases access to renewable energy for commercial customers by removing hurdles that can accompany traditional off-site power purchase agreements, says Constellation. As part of this transaction, Constellation will purchase energy and RECs from the Skipjack Solar Center and will then sell the power and project-specific RECs to the customers. The 15-year agreement will begin in 2021.
“Corporations are eager to do their part to reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions and transition to cleaner forms of energy, and Constellation is committed to providing clean energy solutions that help them meet their goals,” says Jim McHugh, CEO of Constellation. “This major CORe agreement helps to remove the barriers that stand between companies and their sustainability goals, for the sake of good business – and for the benefit of our environment.”
The agreement, which was announced by the school earlier this year, helps Johns Hopkins University make a significant step toward its goal of reducing carbon emissions 51% by 2025. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory – which will initially purchase only project-specific RECs – is also a part of this deal, among other Johns Hopkins’ campuses in Maryland and Washington, D.C.
“When we pledged in 2010 to more than halve our carbon emissions in 15 years, we knew it would require making significant changes in how we power and operate our university,” says Ronald J. Daniels, university president. “This agreement demonstrates the seriousness of our commitment to sustainability for the good of our university and our planet.”
McCormick & Co. will use the energy to power its Maryland- and New Jersey-based facilities, including its corporate headquarters, four manufacturing plants and two distribution centers.
“McCormick is honored to be a part of the Skipjack solar agreement, which represents a significant move forward in our goal to reduce our carbon footprint across the company,” says Lawrence Kurzius, chairman, president and CEO of McCormick & Co. “We acknowledge that climate change is a real and pressing problem, and we’re committed to doing our part to use renewable energy to combat it.”
Photo: Dwight Burdette at English Wikipedia [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]
